Kaleidoscopes
by twilightdazzle
Summary: Because Sakura loves Sasuke in kaleidoscope colors, and not all of them were so pretty. AU.
1. Flying

A/N: SO. This was actually meant to be a not so long one shot buuuut, once again, my mind gets carried away and my fingers won't stop writing, so this is what happened. I actually wrote this all at once, but I split it into chapters because I felt like it would be easier to read that way maybe. So I hope it's not horrible and you guys like it :)

also warning: there is a some drug and alcohol abuse ahead!

also again: I own nothing but the plot!

* * *

She thought love was supposed to feel pretty, like the intricate designs of lace patterns against bare skin and the freshness of Sunday morning in your lungs. She thought love was supposed to be a flutter in your heart and a smile that stretches so wide and full that it hurts your face in a pretty little ache.

But not this love.

This love feels so black, so deep and bottomless that Sakura feels she could fall and fall and fall forever and she would never meet the end of this morose tunnel. It makes her feel heart sick, like a disease of black poison is slinking sluggishly through her veins, dimming her lightness and consuming her soul. She is the victim of a big heart and a bigger hope, a once pure and untainted world view now eclipsed by the ugliness that was love and life and everything in between.

Loving Sasuke Uchiha was _killing_ her, ripping her into broken shards of Sakura that couldn't be reconstructed. It was stupid, she always thought, to love someone who would never love you back, but _she couldn't make herself stop_. It was engraved deep in her bones, imprinted into the neurons in her brain to forever be in want of this one man, to forever be in lack of this one man.

Sakura Haruno was in hopeless, ugly love with Sasuke Uchiha with no way to escape it and no way to unfeel it.

* * *

Sakura doesn't know how to unlove someone, so she starts with distance. The worst part is she doesn't even have to put up much effort on her part because Naruto and Sasuke seem to be molding into the university life without her.

She knew she shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have confessed her feelings to Sasuke during the summer, but she just wanted to know, just wanted to try. Sasuke had shut her down coldly with only a few choice words that sent her catapulting into despair. Naruto had defended him with a simple '_he's just going through a lot right now_' and suddenly it was hard to be around them. Hard to finally understand that for years her feelings had been unreturned. Hard to understand that one of her best friends had unknowingly chosen a side and it wasn't hers. Naruto and Sasuke both pretended the incident had never happened, of course, but for Sakura it changed everything.

So for the first month at Konoha University she cries acid tears into her pillowcase and hides in the darkness of her small dorm, hoping her roommate doesn't hear her agony in the silence. And her best friend seems to forget about her, and the boy she loves continues to infect her, spreading this disease called love only deeper into her skin.

And Sakura loves in black.

* * *

She sees him from across the street one day, and it plucks the breath right out of her chest. A galaxy explodes in her stomach, and the entire world is thrown out of orbit for a whole minute because _it's Sasuke_ and _she loves him_ and apparently that hasn't changed.

Two months. Two months since she's last seen him or Naruto.

Her arms weakly clutch her books to her chest, and just as she's about to turn away, he looks. His eyes meet hers in a violent collision of onyx and emerald, an explosion of resplendent proportions that shakes the earth beneath her feet but remains unfelt to those milling about her.

His eyes say nothing. His face says nothing. But Sakura wonders if he can see the invisible scars from acid tears on her cheeks. He blinks and someone bumps Sakura's shoulder hard enough to reawaken her senses. Then she's gone, disappearing like a ghost in a crowd of other ghosts.

She makes it to a bathroom stall before the tears tumble down her cheeks and maybe she hasn't made any progress at all.

* * *

She meets Ino at the beginning of November, and they click in all the right ways. Her new blonde friend is loud and exuberant, with a sassy attitude and a brash manner that Sakura finds oddly refreshing. They are so alike without having a single similarity but it doesn't matter because they're friends, the best of friends, and Sakura really needs one of those right now.

They are suddenly attached at the hip, two lonely girls with big lonely hearts trying to find a way through the mess. In their little alcove in the library they study together through day and night, groaning at their schoolwork but motivated by the possibilities. Wrapped in thick scarves and warm fleece jackets, they spend their mornings in coffee shops around campus, giggling at the way the boys stumble at the sight of Ino's glittering sapphire eyes and do double takes to get another glimpse of Sakura and her exotic, long pink hair. Squeezing into Sakura's too small bed and toasty warm underneath mountains of pretty, thick blankets, they whisper their fears and their heartaches into the dark of the room, two broken hearts clinging like Velcro to one another.

Ino is a burst of color in Sakura's eternal gray, a welcome explosion of glitter paint and neon lights, and it's so easy to dive into the color with her. Ino likes to party, and Sakura is only slightly hesitant when the blonde bombshell shoves her into a little black dress, does her make dark and sultry and wow, and curls her hair into perfection so that it tumbles down her back in a magnificent show of pink and pretty.

Sakura looks into the mirror and can hardly recognize the girl -_the woman_\- before her. It's been a long time since she's felt this confident, a long time since she felt as powerful as she did with Naruto and Sasuke flanking her sides, three childhood friends that could have ruled the world with their infinite bond. But she had gone and fallen in love and fucked that whole thing up. She doesn't like to think about them, about _him_.

The club is thriving with energy and heat when they arrive, and Sakura only wobbles slightly in her strappy red heels as she walks. She's a little wary at first, a little unsure, but then Ino presses a purple drink into her hand, and the sticky sweetness of it does magic to her body, to her mind. So she has another. And then another. And then she loses count because they're dancing in a mass of sweaty bodies, and her body is tingling from head to toe, and the music is everywhere, drowning out the mess in her head, vibrating in her blood, pounding in her heart. She _loves_ it. Then they drink some more, and she passed gone a long time ago but she feels completely _unlost_.

The strobe lights dance rapidly across her eyes, beams of green, specks of red, lightning strikes of blue, and she can hardly think through the fuzz in her brain, and she likes it that way. So she tosses her head back and lets her hips move naturally, lets her body fall completely into the blissful haze that has raided her senses.

Later, when she's stumbling down the ugly carpeted halls of her residence hall, leaning on the walls for support and ears still throbbing pleasantly from the pounding bass of the music, she finds that she already misses the club. She misses being lost in the crowd with her body covered in a thin sheen of sweat, hands thrown up in the air as her body hums and hums and hums.

She falls into bed with a drunk mind and a drunk smile and dreams of flashing lights and color.

* * *

Sakura finds her safe haven in a cacophony of neon lights and fruity purple drinks. It's the only place she can go where the feelings don't haunt her, where the broken Sakura is nothing but a ghost living in a parallel universe. And she and Ino thrive in this place.

So they brave the harshness of the cold nights in their slinky dresses and crimson smiles and then stumble home with slurred words and a welcome numbness. Gradually, the numbness extends past the night and into the day. Sakura knows she should be worried, knows that the effects of the alcohol could affect her studies if she isn't careful, but, for the first time in years, there isn't a sickliness in her heart or a heaviness on her chest. She knows the hurt is still there, but she's doing her best to suffocate it until it dies.

There are times, though, in the midst of her muffled awareness and marshmallow senses when she is hit with a sudden clarity. And she can picture Naruto's effervescent grin and feel the strength of his hugs. And she can feel the heat radiating from Sasuke's body when she stood close and feel the bone shattering strength of his gaze when he would stare at her.

For a moment, Sakura wonders if she should be doing this. She's studying to be a doctor, and she knows the detrimental effects of alcohol on the body but…

Sakura throws back another shot, cringing at the acrid burn of the tequila as it slides down her throat and the way the flavor sears at her taste buds. But then it settles in her stomach, spreads to the tips of her fingers and slinks along her spine, and it's _so warm_ and yes this is actually what she needs.

* * *

In late January, she and Ino meet Temari, Tenten, and Hinata. Sakura isn't even sure how it happens, but suddenly they're all friends, and it's perfect. Sakura likes them. Temari has a fiery, abrasive personality, but it's just her and Sakura gets that. Tenten is a free spirit, fun and witty and graceful, and Sakura loves the weightlessness she feels when she lets Tenten drag her onto the dance floor. Hinata is the innocence Sakura wishes she still understood, ethereal and regal and shy, but when she's on the dance floor Hinata is one of _them_.

They're a mismatched group, five different personalities with five different backgrounds, but it doesn't matter because when they fly they fly together, and when they dance the floor is completely _theirs_. They are untouchable in this heaven, rulers of this party paradise.

And they dance until they've passed the clouds and the moon and the stars and they've reached nirvana.

* * *

Temari introduces Sakura to one more friend, and this friend really makes Sakura see life in color.

It's a little white pill, so small and unintimidating, but Sakura knows every reason in the books why she shouldn't take it. Tenten and Ino have already popped one in their mouths, and now they're moving on the dance floor so pretty and graceful and free.

Sakura hesitates. She wants to be a doctor, and doctor's don't do this right? But she's so sober right now, and all she can think is _SasukeSasukeSasuke_, and she wants him to _leave her alone_. So the pretty pinkette snatches the pill from her friend's palm and tosses it into her mouth, and Hinata hesitantly follows her lead.

Nothing happens at first, and Sakura is frustrated, meandering through the crowded dance floor a little lost and out of place. But then it hits, and the world is an explosion of euphoria and pretty, pretty, pretty.

She can feel her blood pulsing in her veins, hear the way her heart thumps against her chest like a reverberating drum, and her head is so highhighhigh in the clouds how will she ever come down. _Nothing_ has ever felt this good.

She pulls a dazed Hinata around the floor, and they dance between the colors that beam down from the ceiling. Every color in the rainbow rains down on them but Sakura is certain she sees at least a million more, feels them wrap and burn around her. And they giggle and throw their hands in the air to catch all these colors in their greedy hands, but they just keep on slipping through their fingers.

* * *

Sakura loves Sasuke in kaleidoscope colors. She loves him as lasers beam down from every corner and pierce her straight through with pretty bluegreenpurple perfection. She loves him as Tenten giggles and runs her fingers through Sakura's silky pink locks and as Ino grinds her body against hers and as Temari coaxes Hinata into another pill.

Most of her time is spent trying to deny that she feels anything for him at all, but here, with this pill running its course and these people helping her live, it's not so hard to admit that she still loves him because loving doesn't hurt so much when you get to do it in pretty kaleidoscope colors.

* * *

It's May and classes have just ended when it happens. Sakura lives in a city with hundreds of thousands of people, but she always knew that somehow the world was still small enough to run into them again. Apparently, Naruto and Sasuke have made some new friends, two of which are Kankuro and Neji, Temari's brother and Tenten's now boyfriend respectively. Oh, and Neji and Hinata happen to be cousins. Fuck. And this group of boys suddenly shows up at _their_ club, completely unannounced, much to Tenten's great delight and Sakura's great horror.

"Sakura!" Naruto greets, and everything in his face and voice suggest that he's ecstatic to see her again, but everything in his body language says he is unsure of how to react.

Eventually, he decides to yank her into one of his strong hugs, and Sakura wants to push away but his arms are so strong and familiar that she hugs him back awkwardly, fighting down a lump rising in her throat. She feels amazingly small in his strong arms, and his scent hasn't changed, and all this is bringing back too many good memories.

When he releases her, she meets Sasuke's dark eyes. He is so heart achingly handsome in his jeans and black tee, with a stupidly perfect face and too perfect dark hair. His gaze is a tornado, tearing her to pieces and ripping away her oxygen with frightening strength and ferocity.

"Sakura," he says in that deep, beautiful voice, and just like that her pretty little world is shattering into pretty little pieces.

And she's so angry because this is supposed to be _hers_. These are her pulsing lights and sticky sweet drinks and magic little pills. How was it fair that he got to take that away from her? So with Naruto's voice in her ear and Sasuke's presence on her heart, she drinks and she drinks and she drinks and the world dissolves into fuzzy colors and dancing hearts. Ino pulls on her hand and they are disappearing into the throng of party people, skin gliding against skin and hearts running wild. Through the pink fringe of her bangs, Sakura sees Naruto on the outskirts of the crowd, holding a forgotten drink in his hand and staring at her dancing form with something so sad, so lost. Sakura stumbles, and why can she still feel the hurt beneath the pretty purple drink? She drinks another.

When the sun is threatening to break over the horizon, Sakura hunches over the toilet in her stupid dorm bathroom, cold tiles biting into her thin knees and tears flowing from her eyes as her stomach heaves and heaves and heaves. Her roommate bangs on the bathroom door, yelling obscenities that Sakura can't hear with a fury Sakura can't feel.

The pretty pink girl slides down to lay on the cold white tiles and watches the ceiling ripple and swirl above her and everything is going to change now. Everything is going to change.

* * *

Sakura misses Tenten. Physically, the lithe brunette is still there, with her chocolate locks dancing across Sakura's face as they twist and grind and twirl and her carefree giggle reverberating in Sakura's ears, but she is still _somewhere else_. It's Neji; he's changed her. She doesn't take so many magic pills now, is no longer the first one to suggest a round of shots because he is her new drug. Sakura is happy that her friend has found _someone_ instead of _something_ to put a silly grin on her face and her head in the clouds, but still Sakura misses her.

And sometimes Sakura lets herself get close to Naruto, and sometimes she is the wind at his fingertips, felt but never caught. It's still hard, still a bleeding wound on her heart, but these two groups have officially become _one_ and he's not going anywhere, so she does her best.

Sasuke likes to watch her dance. She knows because she can _feel_ him looking. Beneath the feeling of metallic color crawling through her skin and the cosmic bliss rupturing in her head, she can feel something even more intense, something not so familiar. And then she'll find him at the bar, flanked by Neji and Kankuro with a beer in hand and staring unashamedly at her with an expression that's not blank or closed but something else. Goosebumps race down her spine, and a raging heat settles in the pit of her stomach, a sudden surge of fiery lust she hasn't felt in a long long time. He smirks like he knows, and it infuriates her just as much as it turns her on.

And that is the beginning of their new relationship.


	2. Falling

A/N: Sorry the chapters get like twice as long as I go along hahaha I just felt like there were certain parts that should be grouped together. or something.

* * *

He finds her in the dark, leaning against a wall of the club as she stares in amazement at the display of pretty, pretty lights spattering and flashing and palpitating all around her. She wears two necklaces of neon pink around her neck, and her forearms are decorated nearly up to her elbow with glowing bracelets, and she can't look away. Blue. Green. Purple. Yellow. Orange. Red. Pink. She is a neon princess thriving in her neon palace.

"What's your poison tonight?"

His voice surprises her over the thundering music, and she glances up with shimmering emerald eyes that nearly glow themselves in the darkness. He's not wearing any necklaces or bracelets, which is extremely unsurprising, but his white shirt shimmers a mesmerizing silver and it illuminates his deadly handsome smirk.

Sakura simply sticks out her tongue to show him the little white tablet still dissolving on her tongue. He leans forward so that he's resting one palm on the wall beside her head, his body hunched slightly so that he towers over her, trapping her in the shadow of his lethal beauty. Hooded eyes don't break contact with his, but she feels unexpectedly small and vulnerable, like prey open to attack, and it sends a violent shudder down her spine. It's hot, too hot with him so close, his body only centimeters away from being pressed flush against hers, and she wants that _so fucking bad_. Wants to feel the hard planes of his body crushing down on her soft curves and have his hands _everywhere_ on her bare skin, searing handprint shaped scars into her flesh.

"You're very predictable, Sakura," he says, his husky voice emphasizing every syllable in her name. She licks her lips, and his eyes follow the movement very closely.

She's still too sober to be unashamed of the fact that she's being enticed by the addictive substance that was Sasuke Uchiha, so when that familiar gurgling of shame and not so stale heartbreak begins to bubble in her stomach, she knows it's time to make a break for it. But she just can't resist a little bit of flirting.

Drawing herself up to her full height, she presses herself against the Uchiha, red painted lips nearly pressed against his ear and small hands flattened against his chest. "It's predictable that you find me predictable, Sasuke," she practically purrs.

She's pushing him away softly, and his body follows the command of her hands without protest, and then she's walking away in her neon glory to find Temari, hips swaying in her little black dress and mixed feelings of shame and adrenaline mixing a sick concoction in her chest.

She hates herself enough to avoid him for the rest of the night, but then the pill hits and she's floating through the atmosphere, free of gravity and full of color.

And she raves.

* * *

"When do you think it all changed?" Naruto asks suddenly, somberly, and Sakura can only kind of hear what he's saying because her heart is singing in her ears. _Da da, da dum, da dum_. So pretty.

The blonde is hunched over the bar, elbows pressed down onto the sticky surface as his eyes stare blankly at something, face serious. His eyes are red and his words slightly slurred, so she knows he's drunk. Sakura tips her head back, and long waves of pink cascade across the bar, green eyes bleary but wide open.

'_They changed after Sasuke's parents were murdered in that robbery, and he decided to retreat into his cocoon made of ice. After you finally turned eighteen and the foster home couldn't keep you anymore, and you met the real world in a head on collision. After my dad decided he didn't love me enough to stay, and love suddenly didn't make any sense. They changed after I gave Sasuke my heart and he never gave it back and you chose him and I chose me.'_

She wants to say all these things, but the magic in her veins won't let her, won't let her bring her mind out of orbit enough to talk about stupid, sad things that don't belong in her paradise. So she doesn't answer, and Naruto takes another swig of his drink. The music vibrates in her bones, and she hums happily.

"You should go talk to her," Sakura says suddenly, unable to keep her body from moving to the beat. "Hinata. She likes you and you like her, so you should go talk to her."

Naruto lifts his head, and through hooded bloodshot eyes finds dark hair and silver eyes. He stands and grins drunkenly as he tugs softly on Sakura's hair before stumbling away, and Sakura feels relieved. Because when Naruto gets drunk, he asks all these stupidly hard questions that she doesn't understand, and there aren't supposed to be questions here, only answers. You only find answers in paradise.

The tingling of hairs rising on the back of her neck makes her turn her head toward the other end of the bar, and she finds _him_, watching with eyes of blackest black that make her feel too many colors. The heat coils in her stomach again, blazes a rapid path all the way down the ends of her hair, and she wants to touch him, feel him in every atom in her body until they shatter and explode.

Instead, she smirks, and he raises his glass to her with the corners of his lips quirking upward, and then she's falling back into her world of sweat slicked bodies and bone shattering beats and she thinks '_catch me_.'

* * *

He does catch her. Near the end of June when they've spent nearly two months playing this game of push and seek and hide and pull beneath a backdrop of laser lights and little white pills.

The entire group is crowded around the bar, and there is clinking glasses and loud laughter, and prisms are shattering into rainbows and iridescent crystals in Sakura's eyes and yes, this is _perfect_. Ino, Temari, and Kankuro are competing to see who can take the most shots, and Naruto is talking animatedly with Hinata, and Tenten is wrapped around Neji, whispering something in his ear that makes his opaque eyes darken.

Then Sasuke sidles up next to her, his own little white pill dancing on his tongue, and she laughs and laughs and laughs because there is no pain here, no black. His eyebrow lifts, and her brow crunches. Was that a question? No…an invitation. With a pretty, shiny smile she accepts, but before they have the chance to bail, everyone decides it is indeed time to leave.

They stumble down the sidewalks as a group, boisterous and free and _alive_ in the mild coolness of the summer air. Sakura throws her head back, and she wishes she could see the stars, all of them in their dazzling luster, wishes she could hold one in her hand and be covered in star dust.

Someone tugs on her hand, and she loses sight of the stars above, but then she feels them drop into her stomach because Sasuke's mouth has closed over hers and his hand is buried deep in her pink hair and _wow_. It takes her a moment to find her senses in the mess of colors but then she does, and there's tongue and teeth and fire. His lips are fervent, insistent and not even remotely soft, but she doesn't need them to be because she needs to feel the hard press of skin against skin, just needs to _feel_. He has her pressed against a dirty wall in a street full of dirty drunk college students but she feels _so_ _damn_ _pretty_.

Beneath the fire and the haze and the stars she knows this shouldn't be happening, knows she's only digging herself into a deeper hole, but she can't bring herself to care because she's got her magic pills and her pretty kaleidoscope colors and they're both telling her _yes_.

So somehow they stumble 3 more blocks to Sasuke's apartment, and her hand is clenched in his the entire way, and sometimes they have to stop because she has to taste him again and again and again. She can barely find a breath between the kisses and the excitement, and her body is quivering in anticipation, and she wonders if this is a new high because she's never felt anything like it. Then they're inside, and his mouth is everywhere and his hands are everywhere, and she can feel _every_ individual cell of her body touching his. He sucks on her pulse point and pushes his clothed groin into hers sharply, and she cries out and it sounds so far away. Wetness is pooling in her underwear, and the sharp coil in her stomach tightens. The heat in the room is stifling, and Sasuke's heavy breathing in her ear sends these _delicious_ shivers down her spine.

Their shirts are gone, and Sakura doesn't remember how, and then Sasuke's fingers are pushing her out of her jean shorts, dragging them roughly down quivering, slim thighs with sure fingers. She feels decidedly vulnerable standing there nearly naked in the dark, but, instead of frightening her, it thrills her in a way that feels like explosions of glitter and rushes of frigid air beneath the drug.

He pushes her backwards through the darkness of his apartment, fingers clenched too tightly on her hips and mouth attached religiously to hers. She's distracted by his silk tongue and his silk fingers and silk skin, but then she's suddenly falling backwards onto the bed in a flutter of pretty, pretty pink strands and wide glimmers of jade, and her heart is flying out of her chest. His hands are blazing hot on her thighs the moment her back touches the soft gray sheets, and she wishes she could see his face more clearly but it's too hazy and too colorful and she can only _feel_.

Then her back is arching up because he's ripped her underwear off, and two long fingers are buried inside her, thrusting and curling in a way that makes her cry out and see glitter, glitter, glitter. But she needs more than this, more of Sasuke, needs to be broken and shattered and wrecked and remade.

So she fumbles with the button of his jeans and plunges her hand beneath the fabric, a soft groan blowing past her lips when her fingers came into contact with coarse hair and cool skin and then _oh yes_. Her fingers close around his throbbing cock, heavy and thick in her palm, and the way Sasuke groans makes her throb near painfully. Her body is on fire, and the entire rainbow is tumbling through her veins like rushing water. More.

"Sasuke, please," she gasps, the heightened tingling in her skin making her breathless and so, so desperate. "Please."

Her breathy whisper makes him snap, and suddenly his pants are gone and her bra is finally gone, and he's _inside_ her, pounding a vicious rhythm that makes her scream. She almost feels overwhelmed because his hips are snapping against her too sharply and he's suffocating her in all the right ways and the magic pills are _too magic_ right now and sweet God.

But then it's heavy moans and nails dragging down his back and hot skin sliding against hot skin, and she _loves_ it. It's his hands pulling on her hair and his nails digging into her thighs and his cock reaching so fucking deep inside her, she swears he's touching part of her soul. She's wanton and completely uninhibited, and she scratches and arches and cries and falls to pieces.

He fucks her until she shatters into millions of pretty pink crystals all over his amazingly gray sheets, and _this_ is what it's like to love Sasuke in kaleidoscope colors. With his thumb pressing onto her clit, he brings her to orgasm after orgasm with relentless thrusts while tears cling to the corners of her eyes and her body quivers uncontrollably. And the heavens are opening up to swallow her whole, and she sees bright lights in every color and wishes he was fucking her underneath the pulsing lights of the club while the music vibrates through their naked bodies like the beat of a palpitating heart. He comes, and she loves him and she loves him and she loves him.

It's four-thirty in the morning when she crawls out of the bed and slowly pulls on her clothes. Sasuke's dead asleep with slits of moonlight pouring over his beautiful naked body, and Sakura giggles to herself.

She's still high on drugs and sex, but she knows she can't stay, so she leaves with all the kaleidoscope colors still dancing so pretty in her eyes, her mind orbiting the moon, and her heart sprawled across expensive gray sheets.

* * *

It's two weeks later when it hits her like a tidal wave descending upon the shore, overpowering and lethal and frighteningly beautiful.

She's leaning over the front of his sofa, knees planted firmly into the carpet and fingers desperately trying to find purchase in the fabric as he pounds into her from behind with the satisfying sound of skin slapping against skin. This isn't their first time or their second or their third because one taste was all it took to incite an addiction, but every time they come together it's a plethora of new sensations and a combustion of pleasure so powerful she can't even remember how to breathe. And it's her magic pills mixing with his magic touch, and she isn't sure anymore which one has her under this inescapable spell.

One of his hands holds her hips in place as the other snakes up to grab a handful of pink in his fist, and she releases a strangled gasp at the way he yanks her head back. Fuck, she likes that. Then his teeth sink down into her shoulder, and she cries out, pushing her hips back into his and yelling out _harder, faster, please Sasuke_! And he yanks her up by the waist suddenly, spinning so he's sitting on his couch and she's straddling his hips, and she's danced this routine so many times already she doesn't miss a beat and plunges herself down onto his glistening cock. They both cry out, and her chest heaves and the walls of pussy flutter, and this is when _she knows_.

She knows that there will never be a drug or a drink or a club that will make her forget the feel of his large hands bruising her small hips, of his chest heaving against hers, of his cock moving inside her with a ferocity she'll never find anywhere else. Nothing will ever dull the memory of his voice rasping and growling in her ear, of his hips slamming against hers, of his thumbs grazing her nipples, of his mouth closed so expertly over hers.

And for a moment she's absolutely petrified by the thought, but then he hits the spot in her that's _so damn right _and she just doesn't fucking care anymore. Because with her head tossed back and her long waves dancing against his thighs, she doesn't just see her pretty colors. She feels them and tastes them and hears them and smells them like she's falling through a kaleidoscope and landing in a rainbow ocean.

Because Sasuke makes her feel like she's a comet burning up in the atmosphere, a pretty little galactic flyer trying to run, run, run. And Sasuke is the supernova she can't escape.

* * *

"Enough," Sasuke says, plucking the red cup from Sakura's hands and placing it on a nearby wooden table.

Sakura's head is buzzing, the lake party surrounding her only a blur, but it's not enough. She doesn't need to see blurs. She needs to be blinded by color.

"What?" she snaps angrily. "Sasuke, I'm not done."

The dark haired Uchiha says nothing and leans back against a tall tree, staring blankly out at the large amount of people hovering around the bonfire. Sakura reaches for her drink again, but Sasuke's hand shoots out and knocks it to the ground, the red tinted contents spilling out across the dirt. Sakura feels a surge of anger underneath the flow of alcohol that makes her cheeks burn and her fists clench.

"You don't even know what's in there, Sakura," he says simply, glowering down at her, and _she doesn't care_.

She opens her mouth to retort angrily, but instead she turns and stumbles away, knowing full well that he'll do his best to stop her from drinking but he'll do nothing to stop her from leaving. Her head hurts so much. It's too full of too many confusing things, and this is not how she's supposed to feel right now.

Sasuke is doing it again. He's poisoning her, and she feels so sick and weak and tired. He hasn't been around as much, choosing to venture out with the gang only every now and then, and she doesn't understand why he's disappearing. And when he's around, all he does is watch her, too closely and too carefully. He tries to stop her from drinking, limit her little white pills, keep her from falling into paradise. It's so frustrating, and whydoesnthewanthertobehappy?

Sakura glances back at him from across the bonfire and finds his face beyond the beauty of the flickering flames. The glaring reds and oranges and yellows flicker in his dark eyes as he watches her. She can't read the look in his eye, can't decipher the message in his rigid stance. So she flees, and running from Sasuke is something she's become very good at.

She passes Naruto as she pushes through the people, and his face is a little sad and a little disappointed, and she wants him to stop fucking looking at her like that. He calls her name, but it gets lost in the mush of drunken laughter and painful thoughts and loud music. And she runs from him too.

Ino is suddenly linking her arm through Sakura's and dragging her along the pier, and Tenten, Hinata and Temari are already sitting at the end of it, feet dangling over the edge into the water. And Sakura feels safe here. Surrounded by her girls and their understanding and their strength, Sakura can finally breathe. The moon hangs high overhead, and the sky is _so big_ and clear, and how can Sasuke be such an overwhelming presence when the universe is so infinite?

Temari passes a drink to Sakura, and her mind shuts off.

* * *

She can't breathe. There are too many people, and they push and pull and grab and suffocate her, and she doesn't understand. Maybe she's had too much to drink because the floor is tilting dangerously and the music rattles in her head uncomfortably and her pretty colors aren't so pretty right now. They're too bright, and the way they flash across her eyes makes her stomach churn and her skin crawl. Everything is wrong, so wrong, and she doesn't want to do this anymore.

But then she feels Sasuke's black, black eyes searing the flesh off her bones, and a desperate fear seizes her like a dark blanket. He's too close. She's too vulnerable. She has to get away.

So she pushes her way through these unrecognizable people, deeper, deeper, deeper into an abyss of black and color and phantom reality. The air is stifling, and Sakura can't find the room to take a breath, can't find _herself_ in the mass of sweaty bodies, moving and swaying and grinding until they have all just become a giant blur of people she once understood. Everything is covered in shadows, and panic begins to set in because she can't _see_ and she can't _breathe_ and she's _lost_. No, no. She doesn't like this. She doesn't like this!

Small hands shove the people aside, and unsteady feet just _go_. She feels like she's walking through water, everything muffled and slow and bleak. She's drowning. And then she sees him outside the mess, waiting. For her.

There are only two options now. Flee into his arms or dissolve into these ugly colors. Hesitation. A deep breath. So she collapses in his arms, these strong arms, these safe arms. And he holds her like she could break at any moment, as if she wasn't already broken. He's too dangerous, and she's too far gone, but she can breathe now.

* * *

He's yelling at her, and she knows from his glistening eyes that he's still a little high or a little drunk because she is too. Hypocrite, she thinks, he's such a hypocrite. Sasuke never yells, so when he first starts, she's a little scared and a little worried and a little lost because there are colors floating all around her in pretty iridescent waves and cosmic swirls but there's an inkling of black, and it _doesn't belong_. It poisons her colors, corrupts them until all she can feel is that black, that ugliness. Her feet are coming back down to the ground, pulling her out of orbit and back into frigid reality. She hates it here.

She covers her ears with her hands, but he keeps going, and she doesn't understand _whatthehellisgoingon_. He had fallen asleep after their last round of sex, so she doesn't understand how he heard her trying to sneak out into the velvet night and the pounding rain. But she couldn't stay. She could never stay. Why didn't he understand?

The corners of her eyes begin to prick, and she's breathing heavily, back pressed against the wall, trying to shrink, shrink, shrink away. Stop. Stop yelling. She says it aloud, whispers it maybe, but he doesn't hear her.

"Sakura," he says sharply. "Sakura, listen to me."

She shakes her head, a flurry of pretty pink. Then Sasuke walks forward and grips her upper arms, pulling her close and shaking her none too gently so that she has no choice but to look up into his dark, dark eyes.

"You need to stop this," he says, and though he's no longer yelling, there's still a steeliness and a harshness that makes her want to run. "You've taken this too far. You're destroying yourself. Are you listening to me? Enough of this, Sakura. You can't do this anymore."

"No," she whispers tearfully, and her throat aches, aches from rising emotions and desperation. "Don't talk to me. Just let me leave." She wiggles weakly in his grasp, tries to get him to step away because his hands sear her skin and his presence suffocates her heart. It was a bad idea to do this again, to fall back into this pattern with him, but she just _needed_ him sometimes.

"School starts in a few weeks, Sakura," he says severely, releasing her so that he could firmly grasp her chin in his fingers, forcing her to look, to _see_ him. His face is stone and his eyes are fire, but there is something else there, something softer and unrecognizable. "How are you going to be a doctor acting like this, huh? How are you going to get through school? Do you think Naruto deserves this?"

There's an eruption of fury in her veins, a fire so furious that tears begin to rain down on her cheeks and her blood begins to simmer in her veins, but he keeps going.

"Do you think Naruto deserves everything you're putting him through? Do you-"

With a sudden burst of strength, she shoves him away from her, and he stumbles back, surprised. She's sobbing now, and she's _so fucking mad, so fucking tired_.

"Do _I_ think _he_ deserves this?" she asks and her voice is shrilly and shaking, and she must look completely mental, but she doesn't care. "Does _he_ deserve this? Do I fucking deserve this? Do you think any of us deserved _this_, Sasuke? Don't you dare act like you suddenly care, Sasuke. After all these years of _nothing_ from you, and you suddenly want to care? Please spare me the bullshit."

She has to pause to breathe through the tears because she suddenly feels like she's drowning and it's too hot and _too_ black.

"Sakura-" he starts, but she doesn't let him speak, not now.

"_I don't believe you_, Sasuke," she says venomously. "I don't believe for one second that you actually care about what I'm choosing to do with my life or how it'll end up."

"Sakura-"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Lightning flashes angrily across the room, and why does he have to look so handsome even in the electric blue light? "I hate you, Sasuke. I _hate_ you. You have no idea what it's like to love someone like you. If I could love anyone else, _anyone_, I would, but _I can't_. So just leave me alone, Sasuke. Just let me go! I don't want to feel like this anymore."

She turns and makes a grab for the front door and manages to fling it open wide enough to catch the scent of rain and thunder before his large hand flies past her head and slams it shut with a loud crack. Sakura manages to release a quick, angry shout before he whips her around and slams his mouth roughly down onto hers.

There's resistance at first, rapid thoughts and doubts and desperation, but his lips are electric and persistent against hers and her body seems to be making the decision her mind doesn't want to make. Her cheeks are still wet, and both of their chests are still heaving from the intensity of the argument, but they don't stop. The atmosphere is charged with anger and lust and fire and a poignant frustration, but it makes everything feel that much more _perfectly tainted_. Sasuke's lips dance over her tear burned cheeks and down her elegant neck as he presses her into the wall by the door, legs clenched tightly around his naked waist. Her red dress has been tossed into a corner somewhere, and his pants have fallen to the floor around his feet, and the heat of his skin against hers makes her burn, burn, burn.

He kisses her so deep and hard for such a long time that she is sure her lips will be forever bruised and her breath will be eternally stolen, but then he pulls back slightly for just a second, and a rush of glorious air tumbles down into her lungs. Then he's plunging into her, and she's crying out into a clap of thunder and the blue of lightning, consumed by a tempest of hate and love and Sasuke.

The ridges of her spine dig sharply into the wall as he moves, and there will be bruises, and she wonders if the neighbors can hear him fucking her into oblivion. Her head smacks against the wall when Sasuke presses his thumb to her clit, and she keens and moans and screams and shatters so prettily.

"Sasuke," she moans into his ear, and she doesn't have to say more because he knows exactly what she wants, everything she needs, and he gives it to her without hesitation.

His hands have an iron grip on her ass, and she can only cling to him helplessly when he begins to go harder and deeper, and the way his hips fall against hers makes her think that she's never known true magic until now.

"Fuck. Sakura. So perfect. Shit." He rasps absently against the shell of her ear, and nothing has ever made her feel more powerful than bringing Sasuke to a wanton, desperate mess.

She screams one last time as he hits the spot, and she can feel him coming with her, feel his body quivering beneath her fingertips as wave after wave of delirious pleasure rolls over her. They slide to the floor gracelessly, and she collapses against his chest with his limp cock still pulsing inside her as he lays back. Bodies sweaty and chests heaving, they simply lay collapsed and broken with one another and say nothing.

Sakura wakes up hours later on the couch with Sasuke's arm wrapped tightly around her waist, her back pressed against his gently rising chest. It's still dark and the rain hasn't ceased, only relented to a gentle pattering of rain drops, and everything is so unbelievably silent. She thinks this is the first time anything has been this calm between them, and it almost feels nice, but her eyes are raw from tears and her heart hurts and her body feels sore. So with the utmost stealth, the pretty broken girl slips out of his arms, tiptoes around the carpeted room until she's found all of her clothing, pulls them on slowly and disappears into the night.

The rain is refreshing on her heated skin as she walks down the darkness of the empty streets, and she wonders if it could wash away all of her mistakes and heartaches and Sasuke's lingering touch. She wonders if anything could.


	3. Landing

Music from the party raging downstairs pumps and throbs through the walls, radiates off the white tiled floor of the bathroom in vibrant colors of purplegreenbluepretty. Sakura blinks harshly, tries to clear the hues forming in her brain, tries to remain in control of her floating mind.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, she taps her fingers impatiently on her knee, lets her foot bounce nervously against the bathroom floor, movements stiff and jerky from the soreness in her bones. Her mascara is smeared lightly under her eyes from the short burst of tears that overtook her moments before, her clothes rumpled, and pink waves tossed into disarray. Her body is still tingling, pretty magic dancing along her skin, but she feels wrong and confused and tired. The bathroom is oddly cold for a summer night, and oddly quiet despite the party raging downstairs. Tears prick her eyes again. She needs to leave, needs to run.

Someone bangs on the door roughly, an angry shout muffled by the door and the drug and the colors. It's the guy she left the club with that she shouldn't have let drag her away, but she did. Because Sasuke wasn't there, and that made her happy and lost and ungrounded. So the guy brought her to his place, dragged her through the people grinding to a heavy beat, through the mess and the buzz and the drunken smiles, and up the stairs to his room. But the fog had started to clear from her head and _this was wrong_. He had been too rough, kissed her too hard, let his fingers drag too harshly down her body, so she said _no_. He hadn't stopped though. He kept going, kept trying to yank her black dress up around her waist, and his touch made her feel dirty and unpretty. So she scratched and she pushed and she yelled for him to _please stop, _and the fear and desperation was more powerful and consuming than anything she'd ever felt. But her knee had caught him in the groin, and while he collapsed in pain, she found her safe haven behind a locked bathroom door.

Where was Naruto? She had called him so long ago and _he still wasn't here_. Sakura shifts, and her body aches, and she feels the bruises beginning to bloom on her skin, imperfections further tainting her imperfection. She just wants to sleep, just curl up underneath a blanket in the dark and forget everything and feel nothing.

There are shouts outside the door, raised and angry, and Sakura can hear Naruto's voice, dark and furious.

"Sakura, open the door. We're leaving."

Shuffling, stumbling, aching, she pulls the door open, and meets her favorite color of blue, so bright and beautiful. Her eyes furiously avoid the figure of her assailant standing across the room. Naruto's rigidly set face falls into shock as his eyes glance over her small figure, but then they're ablaze with fire and electricity and an anger Naruto should never have to feel.

"Naruto?" she questions softly, nervously, shuffling anxiously from foot to foot, and the world is tilting and turning too slowly.

He says nothing, simply wraps his long fingers around her thin wrist and begins to pull her out of the room and down the stairs. She shoots one last glance over her shoulder to the guy now standing alone in his room, looking angry and confused and ashamed, and she wonders if maybe he's a little lost too. And maybe they are two lost souls that fate never intended to introduce and, as a consequence, collided into unplanned catastrophe because two people who are lost can never find _something_ together. Naruto's grip is too tight and his body too rigid, but Sakura follows because she knows the shine of his gold hair and the rough skin of his fingers, and this is familiar and this is home.

The music has become mush in her ears, and the people she passes by are just blurs, indistinct little shapes in this messy universe, and she feels like she's wrapped in thick fog. She keeps her head down, hair shielding her face as the tears burn, burn, _burn_ her eyes, and maybe one day she'll get it all right. The night air finally hits them, and she doesn't have time to inhale because Naruto is still relentlessly tugging on her arm, tugging her away from the vague and familiar, and the way her sandals slap against the cement is too loud and pronounced in the dead of night, like an anthem to the end of _this_ and the end of _her_. The finality of it makes her chest heave and her throat ache.

Naruto angrily jerks open the passenger door to his car, the sharp creak causing Sakura to cringe slightly, and pushes her down onto the worn gray seat. She does so willingly, letting her body face out toward the sidewalk with her feet resting limply against the curb. Naruto leans against the open door with one arm, and she can feel his anger crackling through the air, can feel the electric current of his frustration course through every pore in his body. He's going to yell at her, going to finally tell her how stupid and irresponsible and pathetic she is, and it hurts because Naruto has always been her protector, her back up, her never moving rock when Sasuke was only a fleeting dream she could catch at night. But she knows she deserves it, understands she crossed a line long ago that she should have never lingered by.

So she squares her shoulders, takes in a shuddering breath, and looks up at him through a fringe of pink and tears and tarnished emerald. The hardness in his eyes falters, and then falls completely, and then he's looking at her with everything she's hated to see in his eyes for the past few months, and she thinks this is even worse than him yelling at her. Because beneath the pity and the concern and the disappointment, there's that glimmer of understanding, and she doesn't _want_ him to understand because it's too dark and dismal and devastating, and this is her pain to never share, to never burden others with.

But Naruto kneels down in front of her with his gentle eyes and open heart, and when his fingers graze her shoulder, she shatters so pretty into his arms. Violent sobs shake her petite frame, coming up from somewhere deep, deep in her chest that made it hurt to breathe and feel and exist, and it feels like the entire universe is crumbling down upon her. Naruto presses her tightly against his chest, lets her tears soak through the black shirt he's wearing while she dissolves into his strength and warmth and familiarity.

"Fuck, Sakura," he whispers hoarsely, a pained rasp of breath against her ear. "How did this happen?"

She knows he doesn't mean for it to be answered, but she does anyway. "I don't know," she gasps as the tears burn rivets down her cheeks. "I thought I was going to be okay. But I wasn't. Because you weren't there and Sasuke wasn't there, and you both forgot about me, but I couldn't forget about you, and it _wasn't fair_." Ragged gasps. "And I don't even remember fucking it all up. It just happened before I could stop it or even see it coming. Like one minute I'm walking on solid ground and the next someone is ripping it from right beneath my feet, and I feel like I've been in free fall for months, but the only thing worse than falling is thinking about how hard I'm going to hit the ground when I land."

She stops her hysterical rant to find a breath, and by the way Naruto's arms tighten around her, she realizes that he doesn't just understand. _He knows_.

"I'm sorry," he says somberly, achingly. "I'm so sorry. We've all fucked up. We've all been wrong and stupid and in too deep, and I never should have let you run away from us. I should have followed or made you stay or _anything_. But I just stood there like a coward and let us all break and _I'm sorry_."

The blonde's passionate apology sent Sakura into another fit of heaving sobs, and she clings to him. _I'm sorry and I forgive you and I love you and we're going to be okay_.

It took fifteen minutes for Sakura to be reduced into nothing but a quivering mass of limbs in Naruto's arms, and another ten for her to stop shaking enough for him to release her and climb into the driver's side of the car. And then he drove with no destination in mind. For nearly thirty minutes they cruised in silence, Sakura leaning back boneless against the seat, eyes wearily watching as the lights of the city flashed by in blurs of yellow and blue. A sudden exhaustion fills her bones, a fatigue so deep that she doesn't even have the energy to hurt anymore, a tiredness so earth shattering that a tiny seed of hope is planted in her heart. Because maybe things are going to change now.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Naruto glance at her and she almost laughs because she must look a fright with her rumpled clothes, swollen eyes, and wild hair.

"It kills him you know," he begins softly, and Sakura rolls her head away from the window to stare blankly at him. "The fact that you're ignoring him tears him apart. Even if he won't admit it."

Sakura blinks, unsure. "It's only been a few days, Naruto," she responds hoarsely, throat raw from the tears. "And it's Sasuke. He doesn't care."

Naruto scoffs but shoots her a very small smile, blue eyes soft with sympathy. "He wants you to choose him, Sakura. He really does, and I think he's terrified that you'll just be forever right out of his reach."

Sakura's traitorous heart thunders violently, but her face remains passive. Could she still choose him? Could they even still have a chance at happiness after all that's occurred? Sakura didn't want to think about him right now.

Leaving Naruto's question unanswered, she smirks. "How did you become so well versed in the affairs of the heart, Naruto?" Naruto blushes slightly, and Sakura laughs, her first fully bellied, genuine laugh in such a long time. It feels good. "Someone's in love," she teases, and Naruto swats at her playfully, releasing his own deep laughter.

And just for a moment, it's like they were back in high school, with Naruto grinning behind the steering wheel and Sakura sitting barefoot and careless in the passenger seat as they joked with one another. Contentment begins to bloom in her chest, and she rolls down the car window, letting the cool air come tumbling in rapidly. She climbs up with her knees pressed into the seat and leans her entire torso out the window, the speed of the car causing the wind to come rushing through her hair and her lungs refreshingly. It's cool air that's hitting her a bit too hard but it feels good and fresh and cleansing. Naruto laughs and grips her ankle, anchoring her, and she laughs with him, raising her arms to the velvet black sky as the world rushes by them in neon color.

And as she closes her eyes in this moment of nostalgic serenity, she wishes she could just burst into millions and millions of pretty little cherry blossoms and let the wind just take her away, just let her fly and fall and dance all over this universe until it is swathed in color.

* * *

She's sitting in the dark, legs swinging off the edge of the Hyuuga's kitchen counter as she sips at her bottled water. It's five in the morning, but the Hyuuga mansion is too filled with silence and _it won't let her sleep_. For hours, she had listened to Naruto and Hinata's giggling from a room far down the hall and Neji and Tenten's soft moans a couple rooms away until it had grown absolutely silent. Then, as she had squirmed and hurt and wanted between the expensive white sheets, she had strained to see if maybe_, just maybe_, she could hear Sasuke's breathing from the room next door.

The thought of her raven haired lover makes her sigh into the darkness and run a hand through her long locks in exasperation. There are no more magic pills or pretty colors or sticky purple drinks, and now she's stuck in frigid, merciless reality. The decision to cease hiding in her neon paradise had been a painfully conscious one, but she couldn't help but feel so very exposed and vulnerable. Because Sasuke is a roaring hurricane, dangerous and breath-taking and dynamic, and he can leave her in a mess of beautiful devastation in a blink of an eye.

There's a soft shuffling sound on the stairs, and Sakura freezes. Because the entire Hyuuga family was gone for the weekend and the others were asleep, she had figured it would be safe to wander into the massive kitchen in nothing but a thin blue tank and her black underwear. Now, she can only hope its Hinata or Tenten about to discover her.

"Sakura."

A warmth spreads up to her cheeks, and in her stomach there is a sudden mess of nervousness and excitement and anxiety and stars. The world stops and then it begins to move again, only it turns more smoothly now, as if her center of gravity has returned from somewhere far, far away and is now in its rightful spot. But in the velvet twirl of her earth, there's something that shakes her, makes her skittish and afraid, and she feels caught between peace and war.

She swallows thickly and sputters for a second. "Sasuke."

He looks menacingly handsome in the pale glow from the small light above the stove, the yellow glint casting shadows across the perfect angles of his face in a way that is dark and enticing and dangerous. He steps further into the room, and he doesn't look at all wary or uncertain like the way that she feels, but his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his blue sleep pants and his shoulders are hunched slightly so maybe he's a little uncomfortable.

Sakura winces when he flicks on another light and they're suddenly swathed in brightness. She tries to cover herself with her hands, feeling too exposed and too open to him, but his hard gaze is focused solely on her eyes. "What are you doing awake?"

"You've been avoiding me." He doesn't even bother to regard her question, and his frankness surprises her. She averts her gaze, feels like the glitter of his obsidian eyes is too damn bright and too damn pretty, and she wishes Temari and Ino had been able to make this weekend trip with them because then maybe this confrontation wouldn't have been _so damn inevitable_.

"No, I haven't," she mumbles, head cast down toward the floor and hands wringing in her lap. She'd rather be anywhere else, _anywhere_, because she doesn't want to explain and doesn't want to lay all of her cards out on the table because she's already done that, and it didn't work. And the kitchen feels too big and she feels too small, and Sasuke's presence is a domineering force, commanding her to _speak, answer, explain, confess_.

"You don't say a word to me," he said firmly.

"That's a lie."

"You never look me in the eye."

She contemplates looking up just to spite him, but the expensively tiled floor is too interesting to look away from. "You're being ridiculous."

"You never answer my calls. And I've called several times."

A grimace pulls at Sakura's lips. That's very true and she doesn't have a response for it. A long silence lingers between them, and the emotions that whirl inside her are only exacerbated in the quiet. Her heart is pounding in her ears, her hands shaking in her lap, a lump rising in her throat.

"I don't…understand," Sasuke continues slowly, and she finally lifts her eyes from the ground.

His face, his stupid beautiful face, is pulled into an expression of genuine confusion, but his features are still stiff, and she knows he's holding back. She knows how hard it is for him to voice his feelings, to show his feelings, to _feel_ his feelings. She _understands_ but she _doesn't care_. Because he wants answers but he doesn't know how to ask the questions, and maybe this confrontation is the last thing she wants but the one thing she's been waiting so long for. She's so confused, so lost. The situation brings frustrated tears to her eyes.

"I think you're running away from me," he says solidly, looking at her through the fringe of his dark bangs and stepping toward her.

"I'm not…" she begins pathetically, but then that lump in her throat is making her choke, and he keeps getting closer, and she keeps getting smaller.

He's standing directly before her now, her knees grazing his thighs, and the way he towers over her forces her to lean her head back to find his eyes. Her body quivers at his proximity, yearns and groans and aches because she knows what his skin tastes like, what it feels like, and every cell in her body is screaming for their bodies to be reacquainted. "I don't understand why you would run."

Irritation suddenly flares hot beneath her already flushed skin, and she doesn't even know where it comes from but it's a violent burst of aching frustration, a too hot explosion of all the bullshit and the stupid shit, and her mouth is opening and words are just spilling out and she can't stop herself. She thinks it's the way he smells, and the t-shirt that moves over his strong chest. It's those onyx eyes that repeatedly break her heart and the way his hands are resting beside her legs on the counter, thumbs almost but not really grazing her bare skin. It's everything about_ him_ and everything about _this_.

"Because, Sasuke. Because you make me so _tired_. I love you against my will, and it's _so difficult_. And I can't run from you and I can't hide from you because you'll chase me or you'll find me, and that doesn't make any sense. I never know what you want or what you feel because you won't tell me. I have all this conflicting behavior and information and I just don't know what to do with it. You're a code that I don't know how to decipher, Sasuke." An exasperated hand runs through disheveled pink locks. "You're exhausting all of my resources, and, in case you haven't noticed, you're not the only problem I have right now, so if you have something to say then I need you to say it. And if you don't, then I need you to back off and give me my damn space."

The tears dancing along her lash line do not slip, and the lump in her throat does not lessen. She thinks about pushing him away because he's just standing there looking down at her with an unchanged expression, and it's so damn annoying and so _nothing_. Hadn't she explained? Hadn't she given him some semblance of the answer he was asking for? What else? What else could-

"I'm sorry." The two words slip from his lips suddenly, filling the abrupt silence with too, too much. "I'm sorry, Sakura."

"What?"

"I didn't mean to make things so hard for you," he says and his voice is strained and his head is bowed down and she is frozen. "What happened last summer was…a mistake. I pushed you away because I wasn't ready, and I'm sorry. But I do care. About you. More than I think you know."

Her eyes are burning, and it's so difficult to breathe through the painful constriction of her throat. She thinks her heart is beating too wildly in her chest and it almost hurts, and there's that pretty flutter of butterflies in her stomach. It was a familiar feeling, something wholly innocent and pure, something she hadn't felt in its naked form since the magic pills and purple drinks and pretty colors had left it in a watered down, blurry state. It was so nice, so pretty.

She releases a shaky breath, and he finally looks up at her, his face just mere inches from hers. "But what do you want, Sasuke?"

For a long moment, he is absolutely silent. Everything is absolutely silent. The ticking of the clock is like crashing thunder, and if she listens close enough, she thinks she can hear their hearts beating in the dark. His eyes aren't hard and aloof. Instead, they're deeper, softer, filled with hundreds of tiny flecks of color instead of just black.

Then he kisses her.

And it's so soft and pretty, like intricate lace patterns laid against her skin and the gentle freshness of Sunday morning pressed into her lungs. She contemplates pushing him away for a second because he didn't answer her question, but he does something magnificent with his tongue and his hands are gliding along her bare thighs and she can't think of anything but _Sasuke_. His kiss is so deep that she is breathless within mere seconds, but she simply buries her hands deep into his silken hair and pulls him closer, wants to feel every single part of him touching every single part of her.

His lips slip away from hers to dance along her neck, and his thumb begins to graze the skin beneath the top of her underwear. Though her body leans into his touch and a soft moan escapes her lips, she absently tells him no and not here and someone could catch us. He seems to ignore her, choosing instead to return to her mouth with vigor, but then he's suddenly yanking her off the counter, and her legs wrap instinctively around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. He continues up the stairs without breaking their kiss, stumbling and groaning and groping. They're only half way up when he presses her against a wall, presses his hips hard into hers, and whispers dirtily into her ear that he should take her right here on the stairs, just rip off her clothes and fuck her until her screamed. Her body reacts instantly, and she knows her panties are soaked now.

Somehow they stumble into his temporary room, and he tosses her onto the bed where she bounces before finally settling. For the short moment before he pounces on her, she is able to admire him with clear eyes, free of the haze and the stars and the smoke, and she's never actually seen him like this before. His bare chest heaves, his eyes smolder, his hair is unkempt, and his lips are quirked into a sultry smirk.

He is beautiful, and she is doomed.

Then he's upon her, a predator who has finally caught his prey, and she submits to him. With scalding lips, he finds _that_ spot on her neck and she mewls for him. Lazily, her hands glide over the hard planes of his chest, relishing in the smoothness of his heated skin and the magic of his lips, and time is completely nonexistent. His kisses her thoroughly, languidly, until every bone in her body has been liquefied, and then his lips travel. Her tank is pulled over her head so that he can travel through the valley of her breasts, tongue and teeth and mouth so hot.

Then he's ripping off her black panties, and his tongue is _there_, and she's writhing and whimpering and gasping his name like a damn prayer because _God_ he makes her see heaven. His teeth latch onto her clit as two long fingers glide into her, and a pleasure so electric races down her spine that her back is forced up off the bed in an elegant arch and her fingers release the sheets beneath her to clench his silken black strands in her fists. Relentlessly, he brings her to her first orgasm within only a couple of minutes after his fingers scissor inside her and her swollen nub is grazed sharply by his teeth.

The violent rush of pleasure makes her toes curl and her thighs quiver, and she can only release a ragged gasp because a flash of white is blinding her and he is setting her world on fire.

"Nng, Sasuke," she begins breathlessly when she regains some of her senses. "I-ah. Oh!"

He doesn't give her time to speak or recover or think because he's working between her thighs again with more fervor than before. She comes again within mere seconds, hard, still sensitive from her previous orgasm, and _my god_. But he doesn't stop, gripping her thighs to pull her closer, and he brings her to orgasm after orgasm after glorious orgasm.

And she continues to come with such earth shattering force that she is sure the entire galaxy has been knocked out of its proper order and she must be floating among the stars and the angels in a place even further than heaven called _Sasuke_. Then, the colors are back, all those resplendent kaleidoscope colors are dancing and exploding across her eyelids in bursts of magnificent proportions. They steal her breath and invigorate her soul, and she is home.

"Sasuke," she sobs when breath finds her for a brief moment. "Please-nnng."

The euphoria of her orgasms is beginning to take its toll, and she feels tears of exhaustion leak from the corners of her eyes, her body feeling overwhelmed and lovingly abused and _shecanttakeitanymore_.

Sensing her distress, Sasuke removes his head from between her legs, lips glistening with her juices and eyes the darkest she's ever seen them, and through her bleary, hooded eyes she thinks he is beautiful, so beautiful. He moves upward to drape his now naked body over hers, kissing her languidly and so, so deeply, and his thumbs tenderly wipe away the tears that had fallen from her eyes.

Her previous exhaustion is forgotten because his bare body pressed so tightly against hers is absolutely glorious and she can feel his unbelievably hard cock lying so heavy against her thigh, and she's passed the point of wanting him. She _needs_ him.

"Sasuke," she whimpers, then gasps, as his sinful mouth latches onto her pulse point. "Please. Now."

He doesn't hesitate and carefully guides himself into her. Sakura grits her teeth lightly, still so sensitive that it almost hurts, and Sasuke hisses, and she knows it was just as painful for him to wait so long. Lacking from his movement is the usual frenzied and ferocious thrusts, but the passion is even greater. She can feel it in the heated touch of his fingers against her hips and the throaty moans blooming in the back of his throat, and she is being completely consumed.

Pressed chest to chest, her fingernails digging into his back, one of his rough hands clenching her hips while the other slips beneath her back to grab her shoulder, they move to the rhythm of a song only they would understand. He reaches so deep inside her, deeper than she's ever felt him go, and their sweat slicked bodies glide erotically against each other. His lips are buried in her hair, and her mouth moves across the expanse of his neck and shoulders.

This isn't fucking. This isn't just another night wrapped in the lights and the pills and the drinks. This isn't about the hurt and the hate and the breaking. This is the fixing and the feelings and the healing.

This is everything.

"Sakura," he rasps against her ear, holding her closer, tighter, and the heat in her stomach only tightens.

The entire process is completely unrushed, and it feels like they move together for hours, surging together repeatedly as the room fills with pants and moans and gasps. All this time she had been running from him, and she had only been running in place.

His pace quickens slightly, hitting a little harder and a little more uneven. Then, he comes, and it is _spectacular_. The muscles in his body tense, his face falls into a pleasured groan, and his dark strands fall forward over his eyes. The sight of him alone brings a violent wave of bone shattering pleasure upon her and her body quivers uncontrollably as she comes, swathed in fire and stars and kaleidoscopes.

She gasps and cries his name loudly while he groans into her hair, and they ride out the soul devastating waves of their release for several more minutes. Then, it is silent. He collapses on top of her for a moment before rolling onto his back, bringing her with him so that she is cradled against his heaving chest. She is completely limp, boneless and satisfied and exhausted, and she thinks this was his goal in the first place because he didn't want her to be able to run away again.

They regain their breath after several minutes and Sakura feels herself being lulled to sleep by the fingers he grazes softly down her spine and the warmth of his skin pressed against hers. But then he speaks.

"I want you to be with me."

* * *

Dazedly, Sakura pulls out the keys to the apartment she shares with Ino, momentarily forgetting that Tenten is patiently waiting beside her with her hands full of the greasy takeout they had just picked up. The sun has just set, and the nighttime summer air is thick and heavy with humidity that makes her clothes stick to her body and her hair cling to the back of her neck. The gnats and mosquitos buzz around their heads and Tenten attempts to swat at them, grunting in annoyance.

But Sakura is immune to it all, to the heat, to the bugs, to the world that is still rotating on its axis around her. Because last night, Sasuke had _finally_ made her understand, and this morning she had woken up in his arms, for the first time choosing not to run or hide or disappear into a world of glittering pigments. She hadn't responded to his statement last night, instead choosing to kiss him so hard on the mouth that she thinks it surprised him, and the happiness that erupted in her chest had been so vast, so beautifully colossal, that it had spilled over onto her cheeks, and he had smiled at her like he felt it too.

Even now, several hours later, that happiness still clung to her like a second skin, like something she could never detach from. It made her breathless and weightless and free. They departed the Hyugga mansion this afternoon with secret glances and smiles to one another, ready but unrushed to tell the others of their progress.

Sakura grinned to herself, bowing her head to hide her giddiness from Tenten. They had only arrived home a half hour ago, and Ino would be excited to hear the news firsthand.

"Ino!" Sakura called when she finally managed to successfully unlock it. She and Tenten rushed in, eager to escape the ickiness of the summer night.

The lights were off, bathing the small apartment in complete darkness, and there was absolute silence, a stillness that filled the air uncomfortably. Sakura flicks on a lamp and frowns when she notices that Ino's things are carelessly strewn about. Her white handbag is tossed on the floor, the contents spilling out onto the wood floors. One purple pump lay forlornly in the living room while the other lay further down the hall. Envelopes that once lay on the coffee table in the living room now fell scattered around it, as if someone had stumbled into it and knocked them to the floor.

Tenten began to unpack their burgers and fries from the takeout bags, seemingly oblivious to the uneasiness Sakura was feeling. Pink hair on the back of her neck begins to stand on end when she notices that there is a faint light from down the hall, peeking out beneath Ino's closed bedroom door.

"Ino," she calls again as she makes her way down the hall. No response.

The closer she gets, the greater the feeling of discomfort in her stomach grows. She walks unsurely through the bedroom, noting that the lamp has been knocked off the bedside table and Ino's incense knocked from her dresser. But the door to her bathroom is wide open. And then the world falls away.

There's blood on the white tiles, so much of it, dark, dark red against white, white tiles. It's a puddle, _oh my god_. Ino is sprawled on the floor, blonde hair coated in red, red, red. Her face is so pale, ghostly pale, _deathly_ pale. There's a thin trail of dried vomit at the corner of her mouth, a smatter of blood on the edge of the sink, and somewhere in the part of Sakura's brain that's still functioning she deduces that she fell and hit her head on the way down.

A strangled cry rips out of her throat, and she rushes forward, dropping frantically to her knees beside her friend. Her hands fly to her head, feel a warm coating of blood smear across them, touch the paleness of her face, hover over her body because _god she doesn't know what the fuck to do_. She's trembling violently, her heart not pounding but falling straight out of her chest. She hears footsteps and Tenten's horrified gasp, and then the brunette is falling to her knees beside Sakura too. Is Ino breathing? Oh god, is she breathing!

Sakura thinks she's speaking to Tenten, or maybe to Ino, but she can't really tell because the blood is rushing so violently in her ears that the world has gone silent, and she can only feel the vibrations of noises in her throat.

_Call the police, hurry,_ she thinks she screams to Tenten because the girl stares at her wide eyed for a moment, tears pouring helplessly from her cinnamon eyes, before she's scrambling to her feet and running from the room frantically. Sakura can't feel wetness on her cheeks, but understands that she's borderline hysterical at this point, but _what does she do_? They can't wait for the ambulance to get here. How long will that take? Is there even time for it to not be too late?

She can't see Ino's chest rising, can't feel a breath coming from her mouth. Nonononono.

Tenten's back in the room, hiccupping as she collapses outside the bathroom door, and she's still on the phone, heaving breathlessly against it.

"Neji, please, you have to come to Sakura's right now. _Please_. Ino. Cops are coming. Oh my god."

Then the phone is falling from her hands, skittering across the carpeted bedroom floor. "Sakura, is she breathing? Is she!"

Sakura doesn't know what to say, just stares at her friend with haunted eyes because she doesn't know. She doesn't know.

She's unsure of how long it takes, but it felt like hours later two paramedics are shouting in her living room, and Tenten screams for them. It's a blur, a giant mess of confusion and pain and horror. They push Sakura from the small room, and they're so serious, so stone faced and diligent that the fear grips her tighter. Tenten grips her hand tightly as they stand on the outside, watching, waiting, agonizing.

Her knees feel weak, and the possibility of collapsing is incredibly near when Neji comes storming into the room. He reaches for Tenten worriedly, cradling her face in her hands, before peering around them to Ino and blanching, lost for words. The paramedics are moving Ino out of the room on a stretcher, and Sakura can only watch numbly as they disappear. Neji grabs her shoulder, says something that she still can't hear, can't even focus on, before deciding to just grip her forearm and lead her from the room as Tenten clenches her other hand, sobbing. He leads them from the apartment, mindful enough to close the door and lock it, and then to his car. Numbly, Sakura slides into the backseat, not crying but not moving and completely in shock. It's like her bones and her feelings had gone completely numb, a statue frozen in horror.

Several minutes later, they're sitting in the hospital waiting room, and she doesn't even remember how they got there. She is just there. It smells weird, like cleaning supplies and bad news, and the blue cushioned chair she sits in is actually too stiff and hard. Neji has his arms wrapped around Tenten, who has finally stopped sobbing and is only crying silently. He has already called all of their friends and relayed to Sakura that they'd be here soon. She doesn't respond.

A door opens down the hall, rapid footsteps, and then Sasuke is headed straight for her, a worry stricken expression on his face, probably the most emotion she's ever seen him show.

"Sakura," he says slowly as he kneels before her, eyes lingering on her shaking hands now clear of Ino's blood after Neji passed a wet towel over them. He holds them in his.

Pretty green eyes waver as they stare into his, and a shuddering breath passes through her lips, and he lets her body fall into his, thin arms coming around his shoulders as his wrap around her back. _I've got you._

Naruto and Hinata arrive next, and he immediately begins shooting out frantic questions while Hinata moves to sit with Sakura and Tenten. Then Temari and Kankuro speed through the doors, and they are both pale and worried and scared.

Then, they wait. And it feels like hours because it is. Naruto paces. Hinata sniffles. Neji stiffens. Tenten clings. Sasuke clenches his fists. Temari breathes. Kankuro sags. And Sakura just waits.

Then the doctor appears and speaks with a serious face. Sakura thinks she hears him say something about near alcohol poisoning and ecstasy and deadly combinations. And there's a concussion and some minor blood loss but she'll be okay.

And then Sakura's world is falling back together and the collision feels catastrophic.

* * *

Sasuke doesn't say anything when they return to her apartment, simply places his car keys on the table and watches her silently, dark eyes flitting along to her every movement. She's moving with determination, a goal resting solidly in her mind, grabbing cleaning supplies and a mop from the kitchen and heading straight for Ino's room.

There is no falter or hesitation in her steps when she enters the bathroom. Maybe her heart is racing and her hands are shaking, but she keeps moving, slapping the mop down onto the floor and immediately scrubbing away at the small, dark puddle. Blood doesn't frighten or disturb her, but this is _Ino's_ blood, so she gags at the coppery smell and the way it smears across the tiles when she first begins, but slowly the mess disappears. She scrubs at the sink with something that smells hard enough to make her nose burn, and then she scrubs the floor again for good measure.

Ino is okay, and they weren't allowed to see her until the morning, but she is okay. Amidst her furious cleaning and continuous mantra of '_everything is fine', _an anger begins to simmer somewhere deep in her chest. It's faint at first and then it's suddenly consuming her, making her teeth clench and her heart hammer. How could Ino be so stupid? How could she do that to herself and not understand the consequences? What the fuck was she thinking?

Tossing down her rags, Sakura stalks from the room and into the kitchen. Sasuke has stepped out of the apartment, speaking solemnly into his phone, undoubtedly talking to Naruto and isn't there to see her tear around the apartment like a storm. Reaching into a cupboard over the sink, she pulls out liquor bottle after liquor bottle, resting them on the counter until there are nearly a dozen glass bottles cluttering the countertops. Then, she dumps them down the drain, unscrews all the caps and watches as the clear liquids tumble down into her sink. The smell makes her nose scrunch, but she is unwavering. She is pretty pink fury and cutting emerald, a resolute statue.

She doesn't want to see this in her apartment right now, any of it. It all needs to be gone. Then she's rushing back to Ino's room, digging into all the little nooks and crannies where she knows Ino hides those poisonous little pills. She finds some underneath the mattress, in a jewelry box, beneath a stack of unused journals. They're everywhere. And there are some little pills in her room too, so she moves across the hall and digs them out of her sock drawer.

And then they are tossed into the toilet.

As she watches the pills of thousands of kaleidoscope colors begin to swirl down and disappear, her heart suddenly starts beating too fast, too hard, and her whole body is shaking, a thin sheen of sweat beginning to burst out on her skin. Her head is pounding too hard, and the world feels far away, like she's caught in a bubble of water and _it's suffocating her_.

Because this isn't about Ino anymore. This is about _her_. This is about being forgotten by her two best friends and being left by her father. This is about her mother choosing to be there but be distant and life choosing to be a little unfair and a little unkind.

This is about herself creating her own problems because that's what she did. Maybe Ino wouldn't be in a hospital bed if she hadn't decided to dive in with the blonde into rainbows and magic lights. And maybe she would've been happy a long time ago if she had _opened her fucking eyes_ to see that Sasuke was finally trying, finally giving her what she wanted, and she had chosen to run because it felt like payback and payback felt nice. And maybe if she had been the smart girl she always was instead of the desperate, heartbroken girl she had become, then things would be different, better. And the disappointment in herself was the heaviest weight she had to carry thus far, and it was just pushing, pushing, pushing down on her chest.

She can't breathe. Her chest is caving in and _she can't breathe_. Then the floor is tilting, beginning to slide away from under her feet, and she can vaguely feel her knees buckling. Her body is going numb, caught deep in the blackness of the ocean where she can't move or breathe or see. It feels like she's dying, like the devil himself is ripping life right out of her body, and she's catapulting out of the stars and into the sun where it's too hot and too blinding and _too unpretty_.

Oh god, why can't she breathe? She's gasping for air, but it's like there's a lump in her throat preventing her from inhaling any oxygen. She's scared, so incredibly scared, and what if ends like this? Maybe she should just give in, just stop trying to fight the invisible force pressing on her throat and chest and let herself shatter in the blackness.

But then she hears her name, floating around somewhere far, far away, among the deepest waters of the ocean. It's faint, almost nonexistent, but she grasps at it, desperate for that small sliver of familiarity in this miserable universe of chaos.

It feels like an eternity passes before her lungs are able to draw in a steady stream of oxygen and her vision has stopped spinning and dancing and warping. She's exhausted- that's the first thing she realizes- the kind of exhausted that penetrates deep into her bones and makes her limbs limp and her blood sluggish. Her skin is coated in a thin sheen of sweat, and there is wetness on her cheeks, her first tears since she found Ino, and she is still sitting pathetically on the bathroom floor. The last thing to come to her attention is the warm chest pressed against her back, her weary body being supported by strong arms.

She is sitting in between Sasuke's legs as he leans back against the wall, one arm wrapped around her middle and the other reaching across her chest to press a hand against her shoulder.

Sakura licks her trembling lips and swallows thickly. "Sasuke."

He sighs, although faintly, against her hair, blowing pretty pink strands across her cheeks. "I think you just had a panic attack," he says simply, roughly, and she is too exhausted to do anything but nod.

They sit for a moment longer while Sakura regains a regular breathing pattern despite the pain in her chest. She is still slightly dazed and utterly drained when he helps her to her feet and slowly begins to remove her clothes. There is no protest on her part because a fresh bout of tears has suddenly hit her, causing her thin form to tremble and wither. The brokenness she feels is incredibly absolute, but the way he gingerly peels her clothes off is a healing touch, something she once never would have associated with Sasuke.

He turns the shower on and guides her in. The water is hot, practically scalding, but she welcomes it against her aching muscles, letting it pound soothingly against her back. There's rustling on the other side of the curtain before Sasuke's naked form steps in, and she is drawn into his arms like a magnet.

She cries against his chest silently, damp locks sticking to both their skin, and he holds her and tells her to breathe and everything will be okay and donteverfuckingdothatagain. And she can't stop apologizing, mumbling a litany of _I'm sorry_s into his skin until she feels that they will be forever tattooed there upon his chest. He finally tells her to shut up, that there's nothing left to apologize for and she doesn't need to feel that there still is.

Her tears gradually disperse, and her trembling is eased by the gentle brush of his fingers across her back and down her spine. She tells him she loves him, and this is only the second time she's ever said these words to him, but they carry double the weight and the heartbreak and the beauty than the first time around.

Her kisses her fiercely in response, and she can't taste the _I love you_ on his tongue even though he doesn't say it. Finally, the water runs cold, and Sakura is deliriously tired as they step out from the shower and begin to towel off, lethargically passing the blue cloth across her body and hair. Sasuke dries quickly and slips his boxers on before slipping out into her room. She hardly hears him leave or return, but she feels him slipping a large night shirt over her head, a worn orange tee that she hold stolen from Naruto years ago. Then her dark haired lover is softly pushing her damp pink strands from her face, and she feels sadness and relief on his fingertips even if she can't see it on his face.

They slip between her sky blue sheets quietly, and she's tired, tired, tired, and when Sasuke wraps his arms around her with a barely audible sigh, she can tell he's equally exhausted.

And before she falls asleep she thinks that maybe she is the devastating supernova and Sasuke is the fearless comet hurtling straight toward her.

* * *

It's pleasantly warm as the early morning sun streams through the white curtains, and the bed is so soft, so comfortable. Sakura is still tired, her eyes reluctant to open up to the morning, but there is a deep nettled sense of serenity within her, a calm so encompassing that her body cannot force itself out of relaxation even as her mind slowly recalls the events from yesterday. Because everything would be okay. The tangles would slowly work themselves out.

Groaning softly, Sakura rolls over, nose smacking into a hard chest. Oh yes, Sasuke. Groggily, she snuggles deeper into his chest and hugs him close. From the way his chest sighs and his hand moves to her hip, she can tell he is already awake. They lay silently for several long moments, and can she stay this way forever, here in the peace and in Sasuke's arms?

The orange tee slides up her thigh when she shifts her leg to fit snugly in between his, and his hand moves to rest on the now exposed area, pressing her harder into him. She knows the touch isn't meant to be sensual, but when their hips make contact an aching heat instantly springs in her nether regions, spreading across her lower stomach. Sasuke must feel it too because his nails dig into her thigh slightly.

His phone rings and breaks the delicate silence with its annoying chime, and the raven haired man reaches behind him to answer it. He listens intently as the person on the other end speaks, obsidian eyes never leaving her face, not searching but merely admiring.

He mumbles a quick goodbye before lightly tossing his phone back onto the nightstand and looking down at her seriously. Beautiful, glittering, obsidian gems.

"Ino's awake."

It takes her a second to react to his simple statement, her body almost too at ease to think correctly. But then she's moving, tossing the covers away in a flutter and scrambling around the room, pulling on her underwear and slipping into a pair of jeans and a deep red V-neck. Sasuke is sitting on the bed, already dressed in his clothes from last night, and he's watching her with an undecipherable expression. It makes the brush combing her hair pause instantly.

"Sasuke?" she questions softly moving to stand before him, posture hesitant but eyes wide and innocent.

His eyes are incredibly…full, glazed over with maybe too many emotions despite the fact that the rest of his face is set indifferently.

"You're okay now?" It's an unsure statement, more of a question, sounding strange in the velvet timber of his voice.

He eyes her deeply, looking for validation, and a warmth bubbles in her chest at his concern. She smiles softly and steps forward to kiss him lightly, standing between his knees and leaning over him. Strong hands grip the back of her knees while she combs her fingers through his silk hair. The kiss doesn't last more than a few seconds, but Sasuke seems to have gotten the answer he was looking for.

Sakura turns to her dresser and eyes herself in the mirror. She is pale, faint dark circles dust the area beneath her eyes, and she's a little too thin. And she is tired, an exhaustion that runs so much deeper than just a physical issue. But her eyes are seeing the world in striking clarity despite the faint headache behind her temples, and maybe her chest doesn't feel so heavy and fully of ickiness. Braiding her hair, she decides that yes, she will be just fine.

The ride to the hospital is silent and brings to life Sakura's nerves. They bubble in her stomach, make her knees bounce and her hands shake, and she wonders why she is so nervous to face her best friend. Sasuke places his hand over hers, eyes never leaving the road and face never changing, and she is placated for the remainder of the drive.

The hospital is bustling with people, most smiling and moving about calmly. The golden sun seems to touch every corner, and for a moment Sakura seems to forget that this is the same place she had been last night.

"Sakura!" Tenten calls when the two are in sight of the waiting room. The brunette jumps up from her seat and runs to her friend, hugging her tightly.

Sakura sighs into the embrace because all of her friends look weary and drawn and maybe even a little defeated but the heavy fog of anxiety is gone, and tired smiles grace all of their faces. They exchange hellos, and, before they can say any more, Sakura is practically bounding down the hall to Ino's room.

Her hand is on the door knob, ready to fling it open and finally- _finally- _see her friend, but she stops short when she peers into the small square window on the door. Ino is sitting up in the bed, looking frail and pale and broken in her too big hospital gown, head bowed down shamefully while her hair curtains her face. A young man is also in the room, and he has dark hair and dark eyes and maybe he's their age. His face is stern, mouth moving with what Sakura can only assume are angry words, and Ino's shoulders shake as he paces the room. But then he stops, stares silently at the wreckage that is Ino Yamanka and slowly moves himself into the chair beside her bed. He takes her hand gently, and his back is to Sakura but _she knows_ the exact expression gracing his face at that very moment, knows that he sees her friend with eyes that are forgiving and pleading and tired and soft. The man moves to push back Ino's golden mane from her face, and Sakura turns away, knowing that this is not her moment to witness.

"Who is that in there with Ino?" she asks when she returns to her friends, snagging the spot between Naruto and Sasuke on a long cushioned bench.

They all shrug but Neji answers. "I think he said his name is Shikamaru. He's a friend of Ino's."

Sakura is surprised to hear that name, and her heart hurts for Ino because it's_ him_. She shares a knowing glance with Hinata, Tenten, and Temari, and the boys all glance at them confusedly, but none of them try to explain because how can they adequately sum up a story that was maybe so beautiful it was devastating.

They all chat quietly for another half hour, unwilling to interrupt what they are all sure is an important conversation, before Kankuro announces that he is heading to the cafeteria for some coffee. The others stand and agree to go with him, stretching and tiredly shuffling away, until it is just Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto left in the waiting room.

The three sit shoulder to shoulder, too quiet and too loud all at once. Sasuke's fingers are tangled lazily with hers, and Naruto's arm is thrown casually around her shoulders, and everything is different but it is normal. Tears prick softly at emerald eyes because it took _so_ much to get here, but here was so beautiful.

Sasuke seems to sense her sudden emotion because his fingers squeeze hers, and she smiles at him softly, heart pattering more quickly at the way the corner of his eyes completely lose their edge. From her peripherals, Sakura can see Naruto grin, but, for once, he doesn't say anything.

Naruto releases a long, drawn whistle and relaxes back further into the wall. "It's been a long fucking year," he says jokingly, and Sakura sees tired relief and happiness and affection in the endless ocean of his eyes, and she smiles so big it hurts her face.

Sasuke grunts his agreement, and Sakura giggles because she loves them and that's a good enough reason.

Later, when they've all crowded into Ino's room, the pretty broken blonde hugs herself in embarrassment and uncertainty and weariness but smiles genuinely at the group nonetheless while Shikamaru sits by her side. And they all laugh and smile and become so boisterously happy that the nurse pops in and threatens to kick them all out, but they are undeterred because they are together and they are healing.

Sakura leans back into Sasuke's chest happily, lets his warmth crawl through her skin from head to toe, burning and dancing and blazing and _so, so pretty_. There is still some rebuilding to do, still some hurt to be rid of and mistakes to be apologized for, but she thinks she's on the right path, though the path may not be a short one.

And she smiles because the colors that fill this room are far more beautiful than any others she's seen before.

* * *

A/N: FIN! So a little more angsty than I originally intended, but, like I said, sometimes my fingers just write. Obviously no one in this story was perfect, and I didn't want them to be, but I think most teenagers/young adults have made a mess of things before. Doesn't mean there doesn't have to be a happy ending though! Life is just complicated sometimes haha

Hope you guys enjoyed it. It was definitely fun to write! Until next time guys :)


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